Newtown gunman's weapons arsenal revealed

Police documents show the Newtown school gunman and his mother kept a huge collection of weapons.Source: AAP

DETECTIVES searching the Newtown school shooter's house found he and his mother kept a startlingly large arsenal of rifles, pistols and other weapons, including swords, newly released details show.

The results of search warrants executed after the Newtown school massacre were released on Thursday after public pressure for information about the investigation into Adam Lanza's shooting of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14.

Parts of the five warrants were blacked out by prosecutors and the information that remained gave little new insight into Lanza's motivation for the bloodbath, which began with the 20-year-old shooting his mother in the head and ended when he shot himself.

Although detectives list Lanza's journal and other documents among evidence seized, nothing about the contents is revealed.

However, the warrants show that Lanza, an academically gifted, but mentally troubled man, and his middle-class mother Nancy Lanza, kept a huge collection of weapons at home in their affluent Newtown neighbourhood.

The warrants note that Lanza burst into the elementary school with a Bushmaster military-style rifle carrying a 30-round magazine. He ended his own life, as police responded to the massacre, with a Glock 10mm handgun. He was also carrying a loaded 9mm Sig Sauer handgun and a loaded 12-gauge shotgun was found in the car he used to get to the school.

However, that was only the beginning of the mother-and-son weapons collection.

In their home, the search warrants reveal, there were multiple firearms and boxes of ammunition, including Winchester rifle rounds, an Enfield bolt-action rifle and a Luger pistol. There were also three Samurai swords, a bayonet, and a long "pole with a blade on one side and a spear on the opposite side".

The search warrants also list numerous documents that are likely to be under close scrutiny. They include Adam Lanza's "journal", and a multitude of computer equipment and violent video games, such as Call of Duty.

In addition, according to one warrant, "investigators also noted a smashed computer hard drive on top of a desk in what is believed to be Adam Lanza's bedroom".

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